CIVIL UNIONS: So now, what do I think about civil unions, which confer lots of the practical benefits of marriage without the name? My thoughts on this are kind of confused, so instead of laying out a solid position I’m going to talk about the concerns I have, the things I’m trying to weigh and juggle.

1) Many, though certainly not all, of the practical benefits of marriage can already be cobbled together through things like medical power of attorney. It’s not the easiest or most convenient process, but it does exist. For those benefits (like, I believe, Social Security, and, often, health insurance) where you really have very little choice about who you name as the secondary beneficiary, I have no problem with making it possible or easier to name someone else–be it your boyfriend, your sister, or your parakeet’s former owner.

2) Caveat: I would prefer, though, that this not become “marriage lite”–I don’t want it to be assumed that your secondary beneficiary is your sexual partner. I would rather this really be something you can confer on family or friends. Hence I’d prefer the most bureaucratic language possible–“secondary beneficiary” or some such rather than “domestic partner.” I’d like there to be a much greater separation in the public mind than there currently is between marriage and non-marital-but-important relationships.

I talk below about the need to recover a robust understanding of friendship; but in doing that, we absolutely should not undermine a robust understanding of marriage. We’ve already got a craptaculous sense of what marriage is and why it matters (it’s just a piece of paper, right?)–we don’t need any more confusion or blurring of lines between marriage and not-marriage. So yes, we should honor friendship more than we do, but we should not blur it with marriage.

3) One of the reasons we shouldn’t do that is that we make it too easy to drift too deep into a relationship. Contemporary sexual mores help to conceal the steps by which a couple becomes entangled; that makes it harder for them to decide whether they really want to be entangled after all. As the couple starts having sex (thus often, especially for the woman, forming a much stronger emotional bond), moves in together, begins merging their finances, but doesn’t commit to marriage, it’s incredibly easy for several bad things to happen:

a) One person thinks the relationship is sturdier than it is. Usually she (it’s usually she…) finds out the true state of things when she gets pregnant. Suddenly the couple is way too entangled way too fast.

b) The relationship ought to end, but the couple procrastinates because getting out of the relationship would be too complex (it would entail finding a new place to live!) and the sexual bond can conceal some of the cracks in the relationship.

c) The couple starts to think they already know what marriage would be like–ignoring the fact that the promise-making element of marriage transforms the relationship. The couple’s view of marriage as just a piece of paper + hugely expensive wedding is reinforced.

So where does that leave me? Not totally sure, as I said. I do want to make it easier for people to care for those they love, and something like a civil union or domestic partnership might be a good way to do that, though, as I said, I really don’t want the assumption that the partnership is a sexual one.